


Tactical Mapping

by riverbed



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Anxiety, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Illness, Violence, character/relationship study, smut with purpose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 19:57:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5218850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbed/pseuds/riverbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calm, cool collectedness is all relative in the spy game.</p><p>And for Napoleon, it’s mostly just an act.</p><p>Maybe they can learn together, cope together, and that’s the most hopeful thought Illya can remember having in a very, very long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tactical Mapping

**Author's Note:**

> There are multiple wonderful fics in this fandom focusing on somebody's mental illness, but I was having a particularly high anxiety day where I couldn't stop thinking about the recent Paris bombings, and decided to steer that focus into projection, effectively throwing my hat into the ring.
> 
> Don't think too hard about how a secret agent with debilitating anxiety would get by in the CIA... I figure maybe Napoleon's just that good. How does Illya do it? I thought so.

Solo is on edge for the entire hour they have to sit in the cafe. He doesn’t think Illya notices, but he does. He tries not to, but he secretly thinks Illya’s an emotional idiot, completely oblivious to the way Solo’s hand squeezes his own knee as he taps his foot quickly against the floor, his knuckles going white with the tightness of his grip. Solo himself doesn’t notice he’s doing this, or that he’s chewing through his bottom lip, or that he’s scratching the same patch of skin on his forearm once a minute.

Napoleon doesn’t think he watches, but he does. Granted, he had needed Gaby to point it out, at first: the hyperactivity; how no moment was an idle one; his tendency to talk at a hundred miles an hour to cover up a lie and dig himself a deeper hole to lie in with his silver tongue. He had needed her to put a name to it, to bring it all full circle, but when she had, there was suddenly an ease to it. Suddenly, it had felt like there was a plan of attack, and Illya always felt better with a sufficient plan of attack.

Anxiety. Napoleon’s anxious. That’s simple. Illya can deal with that. He can monitor and calculate in the moments Solo can’t do so; they’re partners, after all. He’s used to picking up slack. And he’s read about it, the symptoms, how you mostly just have to ride it out, let it wash through, and find an anchor to reality. He can be that anchor, be solid, be there when Napoleon finds his way through the fuzzy liquid mire.

Solo is actually the oblivious one, Illya muses. Distracted and inattentive. He’s adjusting to the fact that it’s not his fault, because, as he’d realised with chagrin after one particularly frenzied kiss stolen while hiding in a barn in the south of France, he cares about Napoleon. He knows he wouldn’t readily make the exception for a single other person, but for Solo, he’s willing to try to understand, to be compassionate about someone’s shortcomings when he is so used to a world unforgiving of his own. He thinks, perhaps, that his anger could be channeled into something good, something useful - a protectiveness.

Maybe they can learn together, cope together, and that’s the most hopeful thought Illya can remember having in a very, very long time.

Napoleon is fighting off the worst of the panic attack, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to keep it at bay; Illya can see the tightness in his jaw as he grinds his teeth. His fist balls on his thigh, his leg jiggling faster and faster. The sirens outside are still constant; emergency services branching methodically to other parts of the city, taking stock of exactly how much damage has been done as they go. Illya quickly does the same for the cafe and the street outside, determines that it’s probably safe to duck out. They need to regroup, find Gaby, plan their next move. And Solo needs time to calm down.

He grips Napoleon’s wrist - in doing so, he brushes his palm, notes the sweat there - and stares him down, a warning, a reassurance, eyes meeting glassy grey-blue ones as he prompts him up out of his chair and wields him toward the back door of the cafe. Around them, people lie scattered and injured, but Illya has no time to tend to them - he knows logically that medical attention will get to them soon, and they have to get out of dodge or more than their lives will be at stake.

The door lets them out into an alley, strangely peaceful sanctuary in the chaos of a city just bombed multiple times. Napoleon leans against the wall, and Illya moves in to stand in front of him, a gentle hand on his shoulder an unspoken question. Solo inhales-exhales a few times, very focused, and finally nods. They make their way through back alleys and residential streets, heading to the outskirts of Barcelona rather than back toward the hotel.

They come upon less and less large buildings as they trek, signifying that they’ve reached the suburbs, and Illya’s earpiece buzzes with static. He stops Solo next to a small, seemingly abandoned home and walks in a few wide circles while Napoleon sits on the ground, pinning down a place where he can get some reception. Finally Gaby is on the other end of the line, repeating their names robotically until Illya interrupts her.

“We’re out, Gaby. We’re safe. No time to talk, but we need a place to convene. We’re northeast of the city. Probably can’t get back through.”

There’s mumbling, two voices cut worryingly with static, before Gaby returns. “Waverly says there’s a safe house about a mile further east from your location - look for a one-story house with a pale blue door. We can be out there this evening, but likely not before. Make sure you aren’t followed.”

“Obvious,” Illya says, and Gaby chuckles. She sounds positively elated to have heard from them. “Be safe, Illya,” she says sternly, and signs off.

Thankfully there is absolutely nobody on the road, and those that do remain in their homes have closed their blinds and barricaded their doors. As the sun crests the sky and begins its afternoon descent, the noise from the city behind them quiets. Within ten minutes Illya spots the little house with the blue door, quaint and unassuming and surrounded by nearly identical ones with green and yellow doors. Hidden in plain sight. Illya mentally congratulates Waverly on a job well done.

He finds a key under a potted plant - not very creative, but it gets the job done, and it seems to be the only one. He lets them into the house, a bungalow with a muted colour palette. Illya parks Solo on the sofa in the main room and checks the place for signs of disturbance, noting three bedrooms, a well-stocked bathroom and kitchen with a sideboard housing a dry bar. He checks each room over and finds the usual outdated MI5 listening devices, doing away with them with ease. It’s clear this place is paid as much detailed attention as the rest of the safe houses under Waverly’s purview, having been recently dusted and the locks reinforced. “Should be safe here. We will stay,” he calls to Napoleon from the bathroom, splashing water on his face.

Napoleon seems to be in a daze as he passes behind him, shedding his suit, soiled with debris and concrete dust from the bombing next to the cafe. He cranks the water on and steps beneath the stream without a word, and Illya leaves him in privacy, shutting the bathroom door to the sound of the water hitting the tiled floor.

Solo emerges thirty minutes later - a long while for him, Illya notes - with a towel wrapped around his waist and his skin damp and pink with heat. His trademark smirk is back, and he looks much more in his element, a cocky lilt to his stance and his clean-shaven face cutting an intimidating profile.

Illya admires, thinks about asking Napoleon where he’s at, what he can do to help, but he’s cut off when Napoleon comes to sit next to him on the sofa. He groans when Solo kisses him, just as he always does, taken aback by the force and headiness of it, the passion Solo drops generously into everything he does. A kiss from him is like the stress of a long day focused poignantly and drawn out, sensual and heart-wrenching and full of vulnerability Illya doesn’t think Solo knows he knows about. He brings his hand to Solo’s head, grasping the hair at his crown and drawing him closer to him, mashing their lips together so forcefully neither has room to pull away, so he feels Napoleon’s hot breath brush his skin and mix with his own each time he exhales through his nose. Napoleon surrenders into the kiss, and Illya is happy to take the lead, guiding his tongue through maneuver after maneuver, coaxing Napoleon’s body to relax with a large hand against his bare chest. It seems to reassure him, and after a few minutes, Napoleon pulls back, rests his forehead against Illya’s, pants breathlessly.

“Thank you,” he says, and when Illya asks what for, he shakes his head and chuckles. “I don’t know, honestly. Being here, I guess. Being you.”

Illya studies his nose, freckled under the summer tan. “Is no trouble. You are not burden.” He sees the words before they reach Napoleon’s mouth, and stops him. “On me or on Gaby. You are, what is word…” he scrunches up his face with effort, trying to remember Gaby’s term. “Ah. Wicked agent.” Napoleon laughs, the first time Illya’s seen him take a full breath since the bomb went off.

“Slang suits you,” he tells Illya, even while straddling him. Illya can’t remember when he managed to get his trousers open. Curse the American and his sticky, deft fingers.

“I think there are certain times you would be agreeable to anything I might say, Cowboy,” Illya teases, his hands coming to rest upon Napoleon’s hips. He swirls the pads of his thumbs in the hollows of his hipbones, and Napoleon sighs, pushing up Illya’s sweater, his cool hands warming beneath it against his abdominal muscles. Illya shivers at the contact, feels his stomach flexing and lips pursing in concentration.

“You’re damn right, Peril,” Napoleon purrs back, smiling darkly, and grinds his bottom against Illya’s lap. Illya takes in a sharp breath and sinks lower into the cushions. “I need you,” Napoleon tells him, as he sinks himself onto two of his own fingers.

Normally presented with such an opportunity Illya would growl and say something impatient, but the image of the Napoleon he saw today - the one barely in control, shaking and vulnerable - is all he can think about, all he can picture as Solo lines himself up, and as he enters him he is compelled to say something entirely different. “I’m right here,” he tells him, his hips still as Napoleon sets a slow pace. And he says it again, “I’m right here,” as he watches the faintest hint of tears well up in his partner’s eyes, because he thinks it’s necessary, because he thinks that maybe sometimes Napoleon forgets.

This isn’t frenzied or overwhelmed; neither one of them is at breaking point, at a place where they want anything more than to enjoy themselves, to forget the day. Neither is pursuant of anything of higher purpose than the feeling of their bodies together, their skin slick and heated. Illya’s sweater is still rucked up to his chest, Napoleon’s hands under it as he rolls his hips in every direction, and both men pant and moan and gasp the other’s name.

Illya doesn’t touch Napoleon’s cock, because he thinks it’s probably what Napoleon needs, to find the edge without that overstimulation. He’s content to bask in the way his cock drags against the skin of his abdomen. He watches in awe as Napoleon gyrates, sees him gasp, surprised each time Illya’s cock inside him brushes against his prostate and angling himself to try to find that spot again. He draws more pleasure from watching this man, Illya realizes, than from the actual act of fucking him; every time he shuts his eyes and tilts his head back, every ripple of muscle, feeds the thick air of arousal clouding his brain and goes straight to Illya’s groin, which of course only eggs Napoleon on. More of that neck, exposed and pale and vulnerable; more of that hair, mussed and increasingly curly as it dries; more of that mouth, those lips, red and parted.

The mouth in particular is incredibly inviting, so Illya slips two fingers in. An immediate whimper rings in the air as Napoleon closes his lips around him, enveloping his digits in dirty wet velvet heat. God, Solo and his noises. Solo and his mouth.

A few more moments and he doesn’t want to admit it, but it’s over. For now.

Illya can track the oscillation of Solo’s orgasm. There’s a squeeze around his cock and then a stripe of hot liquid against his stomach, once, twice, three times, four times, each convulsion of Napoleon’s muscles more powerful than the last. He gives himself over to it, feeling the tightness in his belly unfurl and wind outward, filling Solo with all he has to give him. He feels their connection starkly in the comedown, the room silent except for their laboured breathing. Napoleon stares at him, and he stares back.

“I’m right here,” he says, running his hand lightly up the back of Napoleon’s hand, over his wrist, across his forearm.

Napoleon only stares.


End file.
